Up and Up and Upwards...

Took these at the mini rock wall at Biwa-ko Valley... The boy scaled it twice just to go down the slide on the other side of the wall... Dunno how kids can climb such a high wall without harness...

Grandparents and Grandchild

Cute...

This boy very cute and sweet... He was very protective of his mum and took care of her all the time.... Kawaii!!!

Kids at Biwa-ko Valley

On the day before we left Japan, we went to Biwa-ko Valley in Shiga prefecture. The valley at the the top of the mountain and in the winter, it is a ski course and resort. As it was a Saturday, we met a lot of families there with their children, grandparents, dogs and all... Managed to snap some photos of the kids... Will be posting them in the new few posts...

This girl very sweet and gung-ho... Trying to slam dunk the ball into the basket... Caught this while she was distracted and looking at the activities that was going on...

Butterfly

Picture of a butterfly resting on a flower at Kinkaku-ji in Kyoto... I wonder what will it be like... as a butterfly... From a caterpillar to a butterfly... Spend the day flying from flower to flower... No backstabbing and politicking among the butterflies..... HAIZ....

New friends!

This trip we met some new friends... All of them are very sweet and nice!

1. Michiyo-san and Saki-chan - the mother and daughter pair during our 1st concert night.

2. A couple from Macau that we helped to take picture for at Kinkaku-ji... and kept meeting them for 2 days consecutive in Kyoto.

3. An old Indian man at Kyoto Kiyomizu-dera, who went to the Aichi Expo for 5 days and stayed at a 180,000yen a night ryokan at Gifu.

4. The HK couple that gave us a sweet love story in Kiyomizu-dera.

To all of you, thank you for making our trip a great and memorable one!

Love Story

We met quite a number of people on this trip and each of them are very sweet... Especially this Hong Kong couple at Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto. The guy did something very sweet that brought tears to our eyes...


The guy on the left is the boyfriend and that's his girlfriend beside him. They are both from Hong Kong and I think they paid for the maiko experience in Kyoto (a special package that costs about 10,000yen to dress up as a maiko - different price for geisha, and they have a special assistant from the studio to help them take photos)

She is very pretty, very sweet and demure, so naturally she attracted a lot of attention when they went around taking photos. We also follow them for a while and took some photos of her as well... heeeheee... Then at this point, the guy's camera card storage was full and they stopped to take to change cards... A group of about 20 American tourists appeared and started taking photo with her 1-by-1.... At first, she was very co-operative, but later she started to feel paiseh and hurried her boyfren... but the boyfren... dunno fiddling with what... take very long time... Finally, he stood up, there was a little small square black box in his hand. Guess what did he do next???

He went up beside his girlfren, knelt down and opened the box... There was a diamond ring inside it!!!! He turned to us and said "This is my girlfriend and I am proposing to her now"... Then he turned to her and said something we couldnt hear.... The girl was so stunned that she couldnt react for a few minutes... Finally, among our loud catcalls, she put on the ring... She had tears in her eyes then.... Think she had to redo her makeup later... So Sweet!!! So Romantic!!! Wish you 2 a very happy and blissful marriage!

Ahh... Happy memories....

Ahh... I really miss them......... Tonight (28 Sept) is their 2nd last night of their 2005 tour and tmr night... Sample tour 2005 will end...... Both nights are at Tokyo Dome and I think a large portion of our pple are over there now... One of my Japanese friends got a arena A2 seat for tonight! A2!!!! So lucky! So happy for her... Think my concert blues are becoming dark purple now... I really wish I am there with them tonight... instead of here and facing all the ^#$#)(%*# news...

Finally...

Finally the photos can be uploaded! I have uploaded some in a few different posts... just in case... Will fill in the bits later!

Words of Wisdom

description coming up later!

Got problems....

Got problems uploading photos... Been trying all methods for the last few hrs... give up...

Our first dinner... YUM YUM....

Our first dinner after we landed... After waiting at home for 7hrs and then sitting on the plane got 6 and half hours, doing nothing except watching tv, snacking and sleeping... then lugging our luggage from Kansai airport to our hotel... and getting a shock at the area where our hotel is (a little sleazy...), we were ravenous... and started looking for food...

We found this tei-shoku-ya (定食屋) which was packed and managed to get 2 seats... and ordered some food... The dinner was great!!!! Yummy! and the portions were good and the waiter was handsome... heehee...

This is what my friend ordered... Fried chicken and fried prawn set... And I got a とんかつ定食 (fried pork)... We got a shock at the portions that it came in.... Its the same size as the demo set outside the shop!!! Look at the thickness of my fried pork cutlet.... 1.5cm~2cm thick!!! Think I paid about 780yen, ~sin11.70... U cant find such portions at this price in Singapore!!! And the taste is great!!!!! Our tonkatsu here is so pathetically skinny and there is no taste in the meat... Tonkatsu in Japan is the best!

Good Weather

Taken from the airport just 5 mins after landing... Good weather desho??? Peace and quiet after a storm... Haha~

From the plane...

Our plane got delayed from 1.10am to 8am on Sept 7... So when we reached Kansai airport at about 4.40pm, Typhoon Nabi has already passed and the weather was good... and hot....

The photo was taken from then plane while we were flying above the Kyushuu region where the typhoon has passed through the night before. The damage can be seen quite clearly... Notice the brown water flowing into the sea... making it 2 shades of brown and cyan... Think the brown is from the mud from the mountains and it is flowing down into the sea... Imagine if the typhoon didnt happen and we should be looking into a clear blue sea...

For the next few nights, the news was full of how the rescue and reconstruction efforts for the damage was carried out. Its such a far cry from the other natural catastrophe that happened on the other side of the world.... It was well organised and the pple didnt have to go through the same kind of treatment as the people in N.O.. News of the other side of the world continued for the rest of the 12 days, but for Japan's case, it stopped after a week...

By Popular Demand....

Okay okay lar... Due to numerous requests (actually 7 pple only lar), i will start doing my photos tonight... a whole 2 days earlier from my original plan on Saturday.... Heehee... Will start posting later! need to find my camera cables to download my photos!

Back liao...

Sigh... Back liao.... Sigh... Back to reality liao....

12 days was good.... tiring, but good.... miss home.... hee...

will be downloading my photos soon and will be updating the travelogue later... after i have settled my stuff...

be in touch!

Kyoto is nice

yesterday we went kin-kaku-ji and gion... weather was very nice... very pretty... think i got some good photos....

today went gin-kakuji (gave up halfway after hearing from our new HK frens that it was boring)... then we went to kiyo-mizu-temple.... nice lor... and we saw a praying ceremony...
Prawnking, how to upload video to blog ah? i took some short movie clips and i wanna let u guys see...

kyoto is nice lar.... think i started off on the wrong foot on the first day here.... heehee... and things are cheaper here too... maybe next time come back for summer concert can stay at kyoto...

tmr going lake biwa.... coming home soon... miss home...

too tired

too tired to update.... we went on everything today... longest queue only 30mins...

think autumn liao.... all the sudden.... tonight very cold............

yawn.... bye...

hot and tired...

so hot and tired...... kyoto so big.... walk until leg gonna break.... now i know why so many pple take bicycles....

kanna sun-burn again.... chao da liao.....

here no shopping one leh...... only temples..... need to buy omiage.....

tmr going USJ.......

In kyoto liao....

now in kyoto liao.... very hot.... almost on the way here from osaka... sent some of our luggage home... 11,200yen.... argh..... sigh.....

later going up to our room.... hope its nice..... got kitchenette... later take photo.... heeheee..

kyoto seems like a much nicer place to live in than osaka...

going to rest.... later 2pm got tour of imperial palace.... in the hot sun....

THAT GUY FINALLY ACKNOWLEDGED US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We were right below the crane today... and i think HE noticed us from the start... Our uchiwas were special and maybe becos i was the biggest and tallest girl there... especially if i tip-toed... and HE got super duper good eyesight...

Anyway, he got onto the crane wearing very dark sunglasses... (i was already waving like mad) and when he got to us, he leaned right over to us and mouthed and moved his hand ``Come on, come on``... SO I STARTED JUMPING AND WAVE EVEN MORE. He continued mouthing and moving his hand even more and I JUMPED EVEN MORE... HAHAHAHA!!!!! All the time he was smiling so widely! SHIOK MAN!

Think he is very shy.... The last time 2yrs ago when we waved at him, he looked away... now he look at us through sunglasses... Maybe next time.... he will do it without the sunglasses... Haha~

The whole concert he was looking in our direction... And he even returned my baby goodbye wave (open and close ur hands)... Ha~~~~~~

Tmr moving to kyoto liao... tonight got to pack....

JM, dun have ur Pa1 Di4 Siong2 how?

Mel, hows the web report?

Bye~ See u in Kyoto!

last night was superb!

we had terrifc seats! block e at the back.. but right at the side! so we had a superb view of the 5 of them! too tired to explain now... will give more details later!

goods all buy already. but maybe will send them back home.

today went kobe.... nice place,... noce shopping!... very very very shack now...

see u neeext time! bye.... :)

In Osaka!

Hallo! Iｍ back with computer access again!

Office mail can read but cannot reply... But all seems well... (i hope)

Now in Osaka! Weather here is HOT!!!

Went out for breakfast and came back sweating! Hotel in sleazy place... So need to be careful... Room not bad, but i think this place is infected with spiders. there was 1 in the room in the first night and another one in the new room this morning.

Later going out shopping... after our clothes have finished drying...

Tonights the BIG NIGHT! Hope all goes well!

Bye!

HALLO!!!! Me in Ｊａｐａｎ

Ｈａｌｌｏ！　Im　ｓｔｉｌｌ　ａｌｉｖｅ...　Ｉｎ　Ｗａｋａｙａｍａ　now！！！　Ｓｔａｙｉｎｇ　ａｔ　Ｈｏｔｅｌ　Ａｌｔｉｅｒ　ｎｅａｒ　ｔｈｅ　ｓｅａ．．．Ｇｏｔ　ｌｉｇｈｔ　breeze　walking　ｏｎ　ｔｈｅ　ｓｔｒｅｅｔｓ．．．Ｋｉｍｏｃｈｉｉ！

Ｔｈｅ　plane　ｇｏｔ　ｄｅｌａｙｅｄ　ｔｉｌｌ　８ａｍ　on　Wed．　Ｏｎｌｙ　managed　to　reach　Osaka　around　6pm．Just　only　seat　plane　ｆｏｒ　ｔｈｅ　whole　day　but　shacked　liao．ｓｏ　1　ｄａｙ　ｏｆ　ｏｕｒ　ｉｔｉｎｔｉｎｅｒａｒｙ　ｗａｓｔｅｄ．

The　weather　is　very　good　－　blue　skies，sometimes　cloudy　but　sunny　so　far.　The　ｔｙｐｈｏｏｎ　is　in　Hokkaido　so　we　are　not　affected　by　it.　so　do　not　worry．

Ｗｉｌｌ　ｋｅｅｐ　ｉｔ　ｓｈｏｒｔ　ｆｏｒ　ｎｏｗ.　Ｔｉｓ　Ｊａｐａｎｅｓｅ　ｋｅｙｂｏａｒｄ　is　killing　me．Leave　ur　comments　ne!　i　Will　read　when　i　ｎｅｘｔ　ｆｉｎｄ　ａ　ＰＣ．

Bye！

Delay Again....

Delay again till 6.30 am... HAIZ.....

Flight Delayed

My flight delayed till 4.30am. Sit and stare into space now.....

Will reach Kansai Sirport at 11.55am if everything ok....

Cross fingers...

Sianz... Typhoon Nabi...

Wah lau... Look at Tyhoon Nabi over Okinawa now. Super strong looking. Heard from my Japanese friends that the country is now on alert. The typhoon is expected to peak tomorrow or the day after. Haha~... The day that I touch down. What luck...

Tyhoon Nabi will be sweeping across the whole of Japan...

Shucks...

The same day I reach Osaka... Right over the same area.... My plane better not be cancelled... Maybe have to make changes to tour plans... Go shopping instead... And buy Pa1 Di4 Xiong2...

Another Typhoon?! Oh No.....

Typhoon No.14 is here... After No.13 (Typhoon Talim)... And its looks stronger than ever... And its headed towards Japan..... :(((

Maybe I should stop worrying about the weather.... Maybe the typhoons will stop.....